Chris Linder Professor Andy Bunn of Western Washington University unearthed a mammoth bone from the mud at Duvanny Yar in Siberia. (Those are flies and mosquitoes around him, not dust motes on film.) 
Audio Slide ShowMultimedia
Audio Slide Show: Training Arctic Scientists
Photos and audio from the Polaris Project in Siberia.
I recently learned about the Polaris Project, a fascinating scientific and educational expedition under way on one of the more remote, unusual rivers on the planet, the Kolyma in eastern Siberia. It is the largest river in the world that is completely underlain by permafrost. The region, like most of the Arctic, has seen substantial warming, and the expedition, among other things, is aiming to measure how much carbon dioxide and methane could be liberated if the permafrost thaws in a big way. About 30 researchers and students from the United States and Russia are traveling the river on a barge. I invited them to send a “postcard” to Dot Earth. Thomas Lin of our Web unit set up the slide show above with audio provided by Andy Bunn of and photographs taken by Chris Linder.Below you can read a note from Andy Bunn, who teaches at Western Washington University, including impressions of several student participants. If you have questions for the team, post them here and he and the students will reply!
I’m writing you from a remarkable dot on the planet. We are in the Siberian Arctic on the Kolyma River as part of the Polaris Project. We are a group of American and Russian scientists and students working together on questions of Arctic science on the world’s largest river that is completely underlain by continuous permafrost. At this moment we are at a place called Duvanny Yar some 250 kilometers upriver from the Arctic Ocean.
It’s a site where a meander in the Kolyma has exposed permafrost frozen over the most of the last ice age. The landscape that is emerging as this soil thaws is reveals a glimpse of the mammoth tundra steppe ecosystem, which was the planet’s dominant biome over recent geological history. I had an opportunity to take our students walking in the Pleistocene after dinner last night. The nutrient-poor boreal forest decays as the permafrost thaws and is replaced by the rich grasslands that were maintained by mammoths during the Pleistocene.
We walked along the banks of the river for an hour and found dozens of bones from different species of extinct megafauna, including several bones from mammoths. Taking students for a walk in an extinct ecosystem was a tremendous privilege for me, and, apart from the mosquitoes, they are the luckiest students in the world. This site is also important for another reason. The exposure at Duvanny Yar also makes clear the tremendous amount of carbon that has been frozen in Arctic soils and therefore not a reactive part of the global carbon cycle. If permafrost soils thaw under climate warming they will release carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. This could provide a powerful positive feedback to the climate system, causing more warming and more thawing.
The challenges are tremendous. The science is difficult and the stakes are large. However, with the Polaris Project we are helping to train the next generation of Arctic scientists and I think we are in good hands. American and Russian students provide perspectives below:
Blaize Denfeld, Clark University – At Duvanny Yar I am seeing eroding permafrost as it slumps down into the Kolyma River. This permafrost is composed of Yedoma soil which has stored huge amounts of carbon for tens of thousands of years that is now is being released into the river. My research project focuses on understanding where this carbon is traveling and how it is affecting the chemistry of the water as it travels from the river to the ocean. This is important on a global scale if we are to understand the movement of carbon between land, water, and atmosphere.
Kiril Tretyakov, Yakutsk State University – I have a great opportunity to work with American and Russian scientists on the Polaris Project. This is my first experience of communication with students and professors from US and I like it very much. I am amazed at how carefully and seriously they do their work on the permafrost. This project made me reconsider some of my thoughts about climate change and ecology. When this field course is over, I will have learned a lot about science and a lot about American culture. I hope to work with these other students in the coming years after the project has ended.
All from the Polaris Project send greetings from 68°38’N and 159°09’E.
With warm regards, Andy Bunn
Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences
Western Washington University
